We started our day with an anti-bullying program presented by Sir Rod! The whole school listened to him discuss the different types of bullies, how to report bullying, and how to believe in yourself! He also gave a history of music presentation, and had the students dance with him! Check out the pictures and video below!

Make sure to ask your child what he/she learned about bullying from Sir Rod!

Sir Rod getting us ready for the presentation!

Sir Rod taught us about the power of words.

We learned about 4 different types of bullies.

This was a great message!

Showing us what music in the 50s was like with a performance by James Brown!

Dance Party time! Our Hannah is doing a great job right in the front!

More Dance Party action!

5th Grade Buddy Visit!

We also met with our buddies to learn more about wind! We want to know everything we can about wind before our kite day on April 10th! The students also made their buddies a special treat!

Reading an ebook about wind with our 5th grade buddies to get ready for Kite Day!

We made our buddies a spring surprise!

Math and Literacy Egg Hunt!

We have been preparing for our egg hunt all week! Mr. K was nice enough to let us use the gym for our egg hunt since it was cold and wet outside on Friday. The egg hunt has two main parts: 1) Step one was to sort all of the eggs by color. 2) Step two involved each child having their own special "egg map" to show them which eggs they needed to find. The eggs had their names, sight words, numbers, letters, and shapes on them.

They did an amazing job!

Getting ready to sort by color!

Nathan puts a pink egg in the right group!

Samantha sorts green eggs!

And now they are ready with their egg maps and cartons!

Finding eggs in the pink section!

Mrs. Miller helped with the egg hunt!

Savannah found her matching sight word!

Lawson and Allysa looking for yellow eggs!

Hannah and Hayden Y. Look through the purple eggs!

Enjoying a special spring treat! A Peeps Nest! A blue peep, pretzels, and jelly beans!

Yum!

They love it!

Aaden's Last Day!

It was Aaden's last day, and it was definitely emotional. We are going to miss this wonderful student! His new school is lucky to have him!

It is Aaden's last day at Old Pointe! We are going to miss him so much!

And now, a March Madness update from Mason:

He wants you to know that the March Madness School Challenge may have ended Friday, but the Home Challenge continues through Spring Break! Read everyday!
Make sure to bring back your completed green reading log the Monday after break!

We spent the day learning about the holiday. We found Ireland on the world map, read a fiction and non-fiction book about St. Patrick's Day, wrote about how we would catch a leprechaun, and had some festive snacks. We also talked about how a shamrock and four-leaf clover are different.

And then....we had a special delivery. Ask your child about each picture below! Have him/her tell you about what was happening.

We are launching our March Madness Reading Challenge! There are two parts: a school challenge and a home challenge, and both of these start TODAY! This program will run from Monday, March 9 - Friday, April 3.

The focus of this program is to help promote and strengthen reading stamina.

Reading stamina is a child's ability to to focus and read independently for long-ish periods of time without being distracted or without distracting others. We will focus on ways to increase our stamina during independent reading throughout the March Madness Challenge!

Home Challenge:

There is a special part of this challenge at home! Your child brought home a ziploc bag in his/her folder last week. The green reading log inside the ziploc bag explains how the home challenge works. Below you can find the information for the home challenge in case you misplaced it! Make sure to turn in your reading log completed by Friday, April 3! Students who earn at least 60 points at home will be able to attend the Basketball Bonanza on April 14th. The reading your child already does with his/her reading folder at home counts towards this goal. Make sure to keep a record on your green sheet!

Classroom Challenge:

Each day in the classroom we will read independently like we usually do. However, we will also discuss our reading as a class after we are finished each day in order to give ourselves points. The rubric for our points can be seen below:

We will give our class points as a whole, and each day we feel like we earned a 3 on the rubric we get to hang a basketball outside of the classroom to show off our amazing stamina! The class in each grade level with the most basketballs at the end of the school challenge will receive extra recess and a popcorn party!

Here is Caleb hanging up our first basketball! We earned a 3 today! We are amazing independent readers!

This is what amazing reading stamina looks like in action!

We are so excited about the March Madness Reading Challenge! Make sure to get started at home tonight!

Author

My name is Kristina Thompson, and this will be my 11th year teaching! I have taught Pre-Kindergarten for 6 years in Chester County, and this will be my 5th year teaching Kindergarten at Old Pointe Elementary with Mrs. Dawson. I am so excited to spend the next 180 days with your children! Here we go!